But he’s no different than any other comedian who gets laughs. Where the laughs are you will find him using a variation of the 12 Comedic Structures and the 8 Major Laughter Triggers, that I teach in my comedy classes and breakdown in my e-Book.

I’m going to approach the first few minutes of this bit of Bill Burr’s, almost line by line, and offer suggestions as to why the bits work so well. This way you can see how the things I teach, work. Even in a rant-style like Burr’s.

Play the video then and follow along the with assessment and PLEASE leave comments. Even if you disagree. We’re here to learn!

Performance Technique

First of all pay attention to Bill’s technique. His point of view is clear. He’s a Cynic with a capital ‘C.’ But what makes it work is that he keeps this wicked, mischievous smile all the way through. CLASSIC! It’s his way of saying to his audience, “I don’t take myself too seriously… notice the funny here folks!”

It’s that smile that makes him likeable. Kind of the guy you want to have a beer with.

Structure

I’ve spent a lot of time arguing that structure is key to getting laughs. Bill uses structure just like any other comic. He just finesses it and disguises it, as you would disguise exposition in a script.

Below we’ll go line-by-line. Bill Burr’s lines will be in yellow. My running commentary (if you give a shit) will be in white.

“I’m afraid to get married, man…Perfect. Sets up dilemma. Even though I’m up here on stage, I have fears too. Plus it’s very conversational. When it’s a conversation, the punch usually comes with more surprise because we’re not expecting a joke.

What man wouldn’t be afraid to get married at this point? Look at Kobe. Look at the shit he’s going through right now.

Audience laughs. Why? Surprise and Recognition We recognize Kobe and his situation while at the same time we’re surprised that Burr would choose Kobe Bryant as a guy we should empathize with.

Guy’s gettin’ a divorce… his wife is gonna get seventy million bucks… never hit a layup in her life….

Audience laughs. Why? Recognition,incongruity and simple truth. By saying, “never hit a layup in her life,” he puts an instant image of Kobe’s wife in our minds doing a layup! For some of you, your image may have her in a Lakers’ uniform. That’s both recognition and incongruity, because our minds probably see her as the wife of an NBA star and not in a sweaty jersey and Burr puts her there in there on the boards at the base of the paint, doing a layup. He paints this incongruous picture for us and we laugh. Also, it’s simple truth. Burr has taken the complex issue of legally awarding Alimony and narrowed it down to: “she never hit a layup in her life.” True and Simple.

Can anyone explain these divorce settlements? Can anyone make sense of them? Tiger Woods’ wife: Two Hundred and fifty million dollars! She’s a babysitter! Worth a quarter of a billion fucking dollars!”

Two fascinating things going on here. The incongruity that befalls on the fact that a babysitter is getting two hundred and fifty mil is funny because of the huge incongruity, but this audience pulls back a little. But Burr uses this tension build to challenge the audience and further make his point. Notice: He’s still smiling!

Somebody explai—justify it. Justify it! What? He cheated on her? I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a fuck! He cheated on her. The relationships over right then. Kobe cheated right? Shouldn’t that relationship been over right then? Why did she hang out for three years like some jaded cop trying to get her fuckin’ pension? Right? Get that ten years in?

Audience Laughs. Why? Give you one guess; INCONGRUITY. Here he even uses the “is-like” formula to get the incongruity in place. “Why did she hang out for three years like some jaded cop trying to get her fucking pension?” Once he set up that incongruity play, then audience laughs. Then he tags it with “Get that ten years in…”

NOTE:You should take note that Burr laughs out loud at this point. Keeping the flavor of the entire show in a humorous light. Cynical, but humorous! Brilliant! It’s theater science that the audience is in whatever state the performer is in, so when Burr laughs he keeps the audience in a humorous mood.

I don’t know maybe that’s too harsh, but that shit bothers me man! Dude, there is an epidemic of gold-digging whores in this country…

Audience Laughs and Applauds. Why? The statement is surprising and a bit shocking. It’s simple truth (based on the information he’s given us up to this point). Burr also sets up his dilemma of still trying to figure this shit out with “I don’t know. Maybe that’s too harsh.” So he’s never saying, “This is the only truth and if you don’t like it, get the fuck out.” It’s more like, “I’m still trying to figure this out too!” Whenever I hear this line it reminds me the way George Carlin used shock and exaggeration by opening with the line: “You ever notice that women who are against abortion, are women you wouldn’t want to fuck anyway?”

….and every night I put on the news and I’m waitin’ for someone to address it. Every night. Never see it. Y’know? And every night, I bring up ‘gold-digging whores’ and the whole crowd pulls back like I’m talking about ‘Bigfoot,’ alright? Like I’m saying the moon is made out of cheese or somethin.’

Audience Laughs. Why? Recognition and Release. Release; He spent time talking about gold-digging whores and built up tension. Steve Martin said that comedy is about tension and release. Well he builds up tension and then points out that the audience is pulling back, “like I’m talking about Bigfoot.” Notice he uses “like” again. Doing a comparison to something unrelated and something we recognize. We also recognize the situation when someone starts talking conspiracy that people tend to pull back.

I’m talking about whores people! They’re everywhere!

Shock value (Surprise). And notice he delivers this harsh line while he sporting that wicked smile. It’s brilliant incongruity. You ever see a movie where the villain is spraying the bank with machine gun fire while the soundtrack is playing some playful circus music like “Entry of the Gladiators.” Same cool technique. Like a point-counterpoint in music. He saying a harsh phrase while wearing a smile. Awesome!

How many? How many more great men are gonna get chopped in half before we do somethin’? (Pause) Why is it so quiet in here?!

This is awesome RELEASE! Using the audience’s own political correctness tension and just putting it under a spotlight by acknowledging the tension with the smile! Gets the audience to release that tension. This is how powerful RELEASE can be. There’s a wave of energy from the audience!

Emotion

One thing you notice with Burr, is that his emotions are always clear. You know exactly how he feels about what he’s talking about. This is very important in stand-up comedy. That’s how a performer connects to his audience; through emotion. Even if an audience doesn’t agree with your ideology, they can still relate to the way you feel about it and recognize that, because they’ve felt that same way about something in their lives too.

I’m not calling any woman in here a whore. So don’t pull back. That’s not fair. If you brought up ‘wife-beaters’ I wouldn’t pull back. I get it. There’s guys hittin’ women and they need to be stopped. But you gotta understand that gold-diggin’ whores are the wife-beaters for men.

Audience Laughs. Why? INCONGRUITY. When Burr says, “you gotta understand that gold-diggin’ whores are the wife-beaters for men,” Isn’t that like saying “are like the wife beaters for men?” So he’s juxtaposed the two elements. They laughed at that incongruity. Now he’ll tag it with something from the wife beater section that we all recognize and give us an act-out…

Yeah! They are! Except, we don’t have that lumped up Rihanna photo in the end. (ACT-OUT: a quick act-out of a mangled face).

But it’s not obvious. It’s in the eyes. It’s in the lines in your face. It’s in Mel Gibson’s high-pitched voice on the answering machine, (ACT OUT: Mel Gibson on the phone): “I had to give up my Laker Tickets!” That is the sound of a man who’s being taken for everything he’s got.

Audience Laughs. Why? RECOGNITION. Men experience abuse too in different ways. This compare and contrast and Recognition drives the point with laughter. AND they recognize the Mel Gibson phone message that got so much play on the news. Then he tags it. By reminding us what it is. Classic act-out structure; tell us what you’re going to tell us, act it out, then tell us what you just told us.

I’ve got to tell you. I’m envious of women. I’m not saying your problems get solved, but at least they’re taken seriously. You know? You got one-eight-hundred numbers, you got ribbons… there’s groups. People give a shit. Anything happens to a guy it’s just considered funny. Some woman cut her husband’s dick off, threw it in the garbage disposal and turned it on. People thought it was hilarious. They were like, “Hey Stumpy!” Nobody cares!

Several laughs here. Why? Let’s look at simple truth and recognition; “You got 1-800 numbers, you got ribbons… there’s groups. Both factual (simple truth) and recognizable. But the bigger laugh comes with the compare and contrast “Anything happens to a guy it’s just considered hilarious!” Then Hey Stumpy! INCONGRUITY. What do you call a guy who had his dick cut off? “Stumpy.”

But the big laugh comes in the next few lines where Burr uses a three-way build-up (triple) and recognition combined. Huge laugh! The three-way build-up creates tension and the recognition pulls out the stops and BOOM! Laughter and applause.

You think if a guy removed a woman’s titty and threw it in the drier, anybody would be jokin’ about it the next day? The entire country would grind to a hault, there would be a moment of silence… (here’s the third of the 3-way build) The N.F.L. would have a special-colored headband everybody would have to wear…

When he says that line about the “special-colored headband…,” do you get a clear image of the pink ribbons, etc. that the N.F.L. players wear during ‘Breast Cancer Awareness Month?” That’s definitely recognition at work!

We can go on and on—as I cover this full 11:30 video in my classes—and I’d love to because I love listening to Bill Burr. But this blog post would wind up being prohibitively long. And I think, by now, you get the idea! If you don’t hit me with a comment and I’ll deconstruct the rest of it.

Listen closely to Burr’s use of the phrase “is-like.” He uses it a lot. He often compares one thing to another then puts them both together in what is known as an incongruity/act-out.

Throughout the entire video he uses that powerful comedy structure. My favorite part is when he gets to the end of the act (right about the 11:15 mark) he compares a man’s dick to a third-base coach, waving in runners.

Take a look and see Burr’s brilliant use of this comedy structure and he pays it off and closes his set. Awesome!

Texture and Persona

Also listen to Burr’s use of the language. He spits out metaphor and euphemism keeping the sentences interesting and edgy. Listen when he talks about Schwarzenegger. “Why do you think she hooked up with him? Because of that nineteen eighties flat-top he’s still rockin’?” Burr accomplishes two things in this sentence; He mocks Schwarzenegger and also keeps it interesting with the choice of words.

Conclusion

Burr uses a variation of several comedy structures in his act, combined with his wicked smile and his commitment to his emotional point of view. He also takes on this challenging subject matter with a challenging ideology. This drives anxiety in the audience, creating tension. If you have tension sometimes all you have to do is acknowledge the reality that the tension exists and the audience will release it by laughing.

I still use that technique. When I talk about issues or deal with a crabby heckler and I feel like the audience is tense and quiet. I simply say something like, “Does anyone else feel the tension in this room?” or I laugh through the end of this line: “Is it me or did it just get really hot in here?!”

These are simple comedic devices you can use to release tension that builds up in the audience. Bill Burr uses it masterfully!

If you take anything away from this video, take away Burr’s use of analogy to create humorous opportunities, (the “is-like” or variations thereof).

Burr uses it like his clutch-hitter in the line-up; when he needs the bases cleared and a big laugh to take him to the next segment, he brings in the big bat (incongruity/act-out) and he swings for the fences.

Hey Jerry, I think EVERYONE who commented before me COMPLETELY completely missed the purpose of commenting at all but seeing as to how I do stand-up comedy myself (never had any training or classes, just took a shot and my stories and jokes are hit or miss), I can understand your reason for this blog and why you would want people to leave comments.

I really do appreciate you posting this blog (I didn’t watch the video as you literally laid the lines/jokes out anyways and I’m a huge Burr fan – he’s 1A in my book ahead of Louis CK) because he and Louis CK are two (if not the only) comedians that I have trouble comprehending how they go about writing for their specials. It seems like they don’t write at all, like they just get on stage and just go with the flow but their choice of words without ever stuttering or stumbling is simply remarkable.

Unlike other comedians (especially comics I know), they seem to tell concepts with stories for examples that include jokes if that makes sense while other comedians either rely purely on stories (no concepts, i.e. Kevin Hart, John Caparulo, Dane Cook) or pure jokes (Anthony Jeselnik, Mitch Hedberg, Mitch Fatel, Daniel Tosh, Jim Gaffigan) and as a result, it flows so naturally so I could never understand how to perform or write like them though I definitely don’t want to fall into the other two categories I listed but as a novice, I began with stories and “graduated” to jokes but I’m still struggling to get to the “concepts” part like these two. The use of segues from one topic to another bores me and when there isn’t one it’s just weird but Burr (as well as CK) do a tremendous job of just flowing from one to the next.

I learned a lot from your post and look forward to learning more, thank you.

Great post Jerry – excellent analysis.
Love the third base coach waiving them on – “Here she comes…slide!”.
All I would add is: if Bill doesn’t smile, then it’s pure satire, and unfortunately in this day and age of PC, most people wouldn’t know it’s satire.

In May, I had the pleasure of following Bill Burr in front of an electric SRO crowd (yeah, on my resume it reads Bill Burr opened for me) and got to observe how he simultaneously antoginized and drew in the crowd. Totally tension building structure with side splitting release. Jerry, I thought your analysis was spot on. Excellent blog. For anyone not to recognize the discipline and the thought Bill puts into his act is missing the beauty of bit construction and perhaps, the most enjoyable part of doing comedy.

First, thanks for sharing the clip and your thoughts. I must be part Chinese, because I read the comments first, then watched the video. That way I could look for the structure…

Fun to watch Bill work it like a fisherman. Picture the audience swimming along in the stream, passing by this grinning man, sort of paying attention…then he sets the hook with the incongruity…and every head jerks around to full focus (and laughter)…worked it again & again. Every time the audience drifted…he reeled them back in.

He was smart to transfer the focus to the “great” man, Arnold. When he talked about wives being gold digging whores…stone wall. Cheating husbands and the whores they do it with is fair game…looking at that from the guy as victim POV was fresh and funny…right, stumpy?

Jerry Corley reminds me of an English professor I had once who could tear apart every word in a line of poetry and tell you what the author meant (who could argue since most of the guys/gals we read were dead). Sometimes you have to just let art wash over you and enjoy the ride.

Now I understand why so many recent comedians have become successful. These are people who address hot topics and are still considered funny. I’m not a fan of the profanity, vulgarity, or the mean treatment of the people in the act, but I have to admit that Bill Burr is a master comedic craftsman. (Personally I’m glad he mentioned the issue of men not being treated equals to women in the private world).

a lot was funny, but i dont think he should call the wives of cheater ‘whores’ they were faithful wives….. the other gold diggers,, okay… funny. i agree with them getting the money tho, because marriage is a contract and the man broke it,, so while his wife is taking care of his kids and his home, he should have he decency to respect her…… but saying that, i bet it is very difficult when women are throwing themselves at them all the time.

Man… I’m just getting started and I see this level of genius. I think to myself, “Dork, are we ever going to even come close to this?” I don’t answer because I had a fight with me and I’m not talking to me. So far to go…